Satsuma residents approve split from Mobile County School System

Satsuma Mayor Bill Stewart gives a thumbs up indicating residents approved a tax that allows the city to start an independent school system. (Press-Register/John David Mercer)

MOBILE, Alabama -- Satsuma voters approved a 7.5 mill property tax Tuesday, a move that will allow the city to start its own school system.

"We win!" Satsuma Mayor Bill Stewart said, holding up his thumbs as he exited Satsuma City Hall after seeing the results. Residents cheered as Stewart read the official vote count.

The margin of victory was 60 percent, with 976 residents voting for the measure and 596 voting against the tax.

"It was a close election, but a victory and a great day for the city of Satsuma," said Stewart.

The mayor said he thought the margin would be wider.

"I’m satisfied with the vote," he said, adding, "I didn’t expect it to be 1,100-0."

Satsuma City Councilman Pratt Monk, who had predicted an 80 percent vote of approval, said he was disappointed the numbers for the tax weren’t higher.

Still, he said, the children in Satsuma will now "have the best teachers, and the city can control where the money goes and we won’t have to ship the children 13 miles one way" to attend school.

The city will soon advertise the application process for filling five slots on a new school board.

Stewart said residents could nominate themselves or someone else for a position on the board.

The mayor and council will also nominate five people to serve on the board.

After all the nominations are in, Stewart said the city would send the names to a school board in another county to select 10 nominees.

The council will then chose five people from that list of 10.

The application process will be posted on the city’s website at www.cityofsatsuma.com.

The council voted in January to split from the county school system, after a study gave the city a favorable outlook.

Satsuma has a $3 million annual city budget. A study showed that a school system in Satsuma would need $2 million a year to operate.

A mill amounts to a dollar in tax for every $1,000 of assessed property value, so the additional tax would be about $75 a year on a $100,000 house.

Satsuma has three public schools — Satsuma High School, Lee Intermediate and Lee Primary School — which can be used.

Mobile County schools Superintendent Roy Nichols said the school system will "negotiate with Satsuma as to what we will give them and what they will pay."

He said the process normally takes two to three years.

Satsuma will also get its "proportionate share" of the public school system’s school buses, which will also be negotiated, according to Nichols.

The superintendent said he still plans to push Mobile County school board members to try and retain the 16th Section land in Satsuma owned by the county system.

In the early 1800s, the state gave all county school systems every 16th section of land. The Mobile County system, which has 22,000 such acres, is one of the few systems in Alabama that has held onto the bulk of its land.

Nichols said he would recommend the board "go to court and fight" any attempt by Satsuma to take that land, which has generated significant royalties from energy production.

In 2008, nearby Saraland became the first to leave the Mobile County school system. Chickasaw has also announced plans to separate from the county system. 